What is the minimum number of Michael Jordan's prime seasons that you need over Stockton's entire career?

[OhayoKD]

It's worth noting that the 1989 and 1990 ECF were the real finals. The Bulls were probably the 2nd best team in 1989 (considering the Lakers injuries) and especially 1990 but were just "unlucky" that the best team was in their own conference.

A few Lebron teams like the 2007 and 2018 Cavs might have missed the playoffs if they were in the Western Conference. And all the other teams that lost in the finals (2011, 2014, 2015, 2017) would have lost before instead. Not to mention that playing in the tougher conference would have made them exert more effort in the regular season just to make the playoffs and then having to face more tough opponents back-to-back. For instance would the 2016 Cavs still win if they had to face the Spurs and then the Warriors...

Yeah, it is pretty crazy how stacked the NBA was in the 2010s compared to the 1990s. 2016 had two teams > 10 SRS and neither of them even won the Finals while a 4th team had a 7+ SRS and had Peak-level Kevin Durant [Top 20 guy] and Westbrook [Top 50 guy].

The year prior [2015] you had 45-win teams with 2+ SRS missing the post-season.

It really goes to show that a player of Jordan's calibre in 1990 led to many more title odds than a player of Jordan's calibre in 2010s, which is another interesting thought point related to the "SRS Title Odds" thread on this forum.

Lot's of good stuff here to unpack.

so yes, 2016 was uniquely stacked in being only the second season with 2 10+ SRS teams (1972), but lebron's average theoretical combined opponents SRS for winning every title from 2010-18 was 14.5 per season (only 2010 is theoretical since that was the only year he didn't make the finals, and he missed the playoffs in 2019). jordan's actual combined opponents SRS in his 6 title runs was 15.4 per season. lebron even won the 2013 championship with only a combined opponents SRS of 8.2. from 2009-2013, he didn't face a single team above +6.7 and could have won all 5 titles without facing a team above +7.12 (2010 orlando).

now the warriors do affect the title odds by being such a strong team. i took the average SRS of jordan's championship bulls of +9.1 and gave that to lebron's teams in the 2010's. they ended up with 3.73 expected championships, or 41.4% per year. but that's 51.9% from 2010-14 and 28.2% from 2015-18. for jordan's 6 championships, the expected championships were 2.77, or 46.2% per year. so we can see with lebron a little skew from the warriors as lebron's odds drop below jordan's despite more combined opponents SRS for jordan, but still 41% vs 46%, not too terribly different.

He won the 2013 championship by beating a 90 detroit analog. He won the 2012 one by crushing a 92 knicks analog. With both posting higher psrs than any jordan opponent and both having a better adjacent seasons statistically than the corresponding jordan opponent(as well as an emperical advantage that season).

Despite playing in a non-expansion league lebron faced not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5, but 6 finals opponents posting higher psrs than any of MJ's to start his finals career with the 2007 spurs being the only one of lebron's first 7 final opponents that graded out marginally lower than the 97 jazz.

And then we get to the rather large emperical disparity when we look at the supporting casts, and then we get to factors like fit or health(the latter allowing for the brillant line of reasoning that lebron is not a cieling raisier because he did not link up his 2016 championship with his 2013 one)

[homecourtloss]

Yeah, it is pretty crazy how stacked the NBA was in the 2010s compared to the 1990s. 2016 had two teams > 10 SRS and neither of them even won the Finals while a 4th team had a 7+ SRS and had Peak-level Kevin Durant [Top 20 guy] and Westbrook [Top 50 guy].

The year prior [2015] you had 45-win teams with 2+ SRS missing the post-season.

It really goes to show that a player of Jordan's calibre in 1990 led to many more title odds than a player of Jordan's calibre in 2010s, which is another interesting thought point related to the "SRS Title Odds" thread on this forum.

Lot's of good stuff here to unpack.

so yes, 2016 was uniquely stacked in being only the second season with 2 10+ SRS teams (1972), but lebron's average theoretical combined opponents SRS for winning every title from 2010-18 was 14.5 per season (only 2010 is theoretical since that was the only year he didn't make the finals, and he missed the playoffs in 2019). jordan's actual combined opponents SRS in his 6 title runs was 15.4 per season. lebron even won the 2013 championship with only a combined opponents SRS of 8.2. from 2009-2013, he didn't face a single team above +6.7 and could have won all 5 titles without facing a team above +7.12 (2010 orlando).

now the warriors do affect the title odds by being such a strong team. i took the average SRS of jordan's championship bulls of +9.1 and gave that to lebron's teams in the 2010's. they ended up with 3.73 expected championships, or 41.4% per year. but that's 51.9% from 2010-14 and 28.2% from 2015-18. for jordan's 6 championships, the expected championships were 2.77, or 46.2% per year. so we can see with lebron a little skew from the warriors as lebron's odds drop below jordan's despite more combined opponents SRS for jordan, but still 41% vs 46%, not too terribly different.

He won the 2013 championship by beating a 90 detroit analog. He won the 2012 one by crushing a 92 knicks analog. With both posting higher psrs than any jordan opponent and both having a better adjacent seasons statistically than the corresponding jordan opponent(as well as an emperical advantage that season).

Despite playing in a non-expansion league lebron faced not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5, but 6 finals opponents posting higher psrs than any of MJ's to start his finals career with the 2007 spurs being the only one of lebron's first 7 final opponents that graded out marginally lower than the 97 jazz.

And then we get to the rather large emperical disparity when we look at the supporting casts, and then we get to factors like fit or health(the latter allowing for the brillant line of reasoning that lebron is not a cieling raisier because he did not link up his 2016 championship with his 2013 one)

Good point about the 1990 analog—2013 Spurs just took it further were just a different tier of team.

If you want to do flat srs you can, but then teams that coast get underrated(90 pistons, 2013 spurs) and teams like the 2018 raptors get overrated. There are trade-offs with either approach, but especially in the modern league where everyone coasts now.

This is very good point—overall SRS doesn’t mean as much when you have the least % of minutes played by the teams’ best players ever. We’ve had on court minutes now though, so we should be using these anyway. The 2013 Spurs were a forerunner for this as they were a monster team hiding behind fewer minutes and games played by their best players.



Kind of looks like what the 2023 Nuggets had:



Even when their best players played, they didn’t play heavy minutes per game; their 16 most used three man lineups all had double digit NRtgs, which is crazy.



The 1990 Pistons did ramp up things in a very good playoffs run, but they seemed to at least play their top players and had great health, but unlike most teams of that time (and any time before) relied on their depth so nobody played heavy minutes, which was unusual for their era.



Most teams when having great health luck would have their minutes look like the 1990 Bulls’ minutes



Or the 1987 Lakers who were blowing out teams and resting earlier in games relative to their era



You also had a team like the 2011 Mavs who had some heavy minutes monster pairings but they didn’t play enough games together (e.g., Dirk and Chandler) but in the playoffs they were all available so the +4 to +5 SRS label is pretty much meaningless.

[falcolombardi]

This is based on absolutely nothingh, but by vibes i would go with like 5 jordan seasons

I am imagining this from a gm point of view where i am asked to pick having 20 years of all star level guard vs 5 seasons of near goat level player in jordan

Jordan is a lot better, but the statistical odds make it very likely some or even all of those 5 seasons will be "wasted" by injuries, weak rosters or facing juggernauts in the playoffs

Stockton doesnt shot my title chances nearly as much but it gives me a good head start to work with for a long time

[trex_8063]

If I can pick the seasons of Jordan, probably 5-6. I voted five, but now I'm thinking six.

I'm pretty sure I'd take '88-'92 + '96 (or similar combo) slimly over Stockton's career.

[MyUniBroDavis]

im confused, from the start of his career or we pick out a specific year?

[OhayoKD]

im confused, from the start of his career or we pick out a specific year?

it says "prime" in the title